Sunday, 26 August 2012

This week at One Stitch at a Time, our challenge is an easy one - use a digi!

This week, I'm working with some papers from Panda Bear Designs called Sweet Melodies and I've teamed them with a beautiful set of dancer silhouettes from Stitch called Rehearsal.

I decided to make a circle flip book, and to give you an idea of it, here's a photo from above.

That gives you an idea of the overall shape, but that's only part of the story.

First Quadrant

Second Quadrant

Third Quadrant

And finally, the fourth quadrant.

I printed the gorgeous papers onto my favourite Ryman Matte coated Ink Jet card. It gives a beautiful velvety finish and the print quality is fabulous. Then, I pulled out my newest toy, a Martha Stewart Large circle cutter. I've had my eye on one for a while, but they never seem to be in stock, so when I spotted one which was in stock and reduced, I pounced! I must admit, it beats cutting round with scissors!

I printed the silhouettes (two of each with one flipped horizontally) onto the same card, backing them with a shade from the background. I then used an offcut of the silhouette prints to suspend the dancers from the 'wall' of each quadrant.

Monday, 20 August 2012

This week at One Stitch at a Time, we're celebrating the summer holidays! We've got a seaside theme, chosen by Yvonne. She wants our seaside postcards showing both beach and sea!

I was lucky enough to use an image from our fabulous sponsors Digi Doodle Shop

I found this hard - not least because I don't often work on a rectangular 'canvas'. But, I've never seen a square postcard, so, I headed for my laptop and Photoshop Elements, and away I went! The background uses a standard PSE background of sand being lapped by a wave, and I sized it to postcard sized. The image was a little squarer than you see above, so I used the PSE clone tool to carry the horizon and beach line a little further. Once it was printed, I coloured the image with Promarkers. After matting as you see, I added a layered sea shell which I got from a CD from Crafty Computer Paper called Crafty Image Emporium. That's one thing I love about digital crafting - you can store all sorts of goodies without having to buy a bigger house. (Not that I don't need a bigger house too, but the need would be much more urgent if I didn't use so many digital options!)

Sunday, 19 August 2012

This week at One Stitch at a Time, the theme is 'Back to School'. Now, this is the first year in a very long time that we don't have any children going back to school! Our youngest is due to go off to university shortly, but our days of being involved in schools as parents are over. It seems very odd. And I know that many parents out there are just waiting for the holidays to be over. However, since I work in a school, I'm looking at how little time is left and wondering just where the holiday's gone!

I chose an image from My Heart Pieces for this challenge. Now, initially, I wasn't sure how to follow the theme. Largely due to the international status of the various artists who sell through the Stitchy Bear shop, there aren't many images which could pass for UK school uniform. But then I saw this image, and the words just popped into my head. It's called Cute Boy and it's available in the shop.

I coloured the image with Promarkers, and the paper is from a pad called Persimmon. The flowers were constructed using pieces of punched white card which I coloured with Promarkers in shades to match the image.

Sunday, 12 August 2012

This week at One Stitch at a Time, it's that easiest of all challenges: Anything Goes!

Our sponsors this week are

and

where you can win this month's collaboration

This week, I got to work with an image from the selection at Lil Diva called Woodland Scene which is available at the Stitchy Bear shop and as part of the collection above.

The image is gorgeous, and doesn't need a lot of work - in fact I could have left it as I printed it, but I thought I'd try out something a little different. I dabbed some Distress Ink onto the image using an Ink Duster brush. That gives quite a subtle effect. I started with Mustard Seed in the centre, shading to Wild Honey and finishing with a bit of Fired Brick towards the outside. The paper is from Papermania, and I finished with some pretty metallic gold ribbon and some sticky gems which I coloured with Promarker.

Monday, 6 August 2012

This week, at Crafty Cardmakers, in honour of the Olympics we'd like to see some sport inspired creations. Any sport will do but it would be briliant if there were some sports that are competed at the Olympics (including the Winter Olympic) games. And while you're thinking about that, you might want to consider joining our team! It's a very relaxed atmosphere at Crafty Cardmakers, and you've got a lot of freedom in terms of what you create. The maximum commitment is two projects per month.

As a family business we're a friendly, helpful, bunch at Hobby Art. All our stamps are designed by us and manufactured in Britain. Look at the gallery on my blog - jennymayes.com - for lots of card ideas using the Hobby Art range. We're pleased to sponsor the Crafty Cardmakers Challenge and look forward to seeing the entries. Good luck everyone. Jenny and all. X

Now, to be honest, I have very few sporty images. I can't say I find them inspiring, but then I'm not interested in any sports, so that's hardly surprising! Still, I had a trawl through the images on my computer and came across one I picked up from the Dover Books sampler some time ago. (The sampler used to be brilliant for artwork, although in recent months they've widened the types of books they sample so that there are fewer images available.) If you're interested, go here and sign up.

The image came complete with that triangle in the background, and rather than remove it, I decided to echo it by cutting out the image in a larger triangle and matting as shown. I coloured with Promarkers, the I mounted it onto a piece of paper from Papermania which had been A5 in size, but which I trimmed to slightly smaller. Then I cut off one corner, and used that line to cut off a corner of an A5 card. The sentiment is hand-written using a Sakura Stardust pen, and the sentiment was matted and cut as shown.

Sunday, 5 August 2012

This week at One Stitch at a Time, we're challenging you to limit your colours! So, anything you like, but use white plus one other colour (although you can use realistic skin and hair tones too if you need to.)

I got to work with a lovely, fun image from Hope Jacare which is part of the Frosty pack, and it definitely seemed to lend itself to limiting colours.

I coloured the image with Promarkers, and added some sparkle to those lovely Hope Jacare swirls using a Quickie Glue Pen and some Glamour Dust. The background was embossed using folders from Cuttlebug and Papermania, and I cut and matted the image using nestibilities. I did consider die cutting some snowflakes for embellishment, but decided that the embossing is embellishment enough (and it should let me post the card without having to go for a 'large' stamp which is always a bonus!)

Yesterday, I finally got around to doing some triple embossing. I'd bought some die cut card shapes some weeks ago with a view to decorating them with embossing powder, but with everything else that's been going on, they've been languishing, unused.

I had a couple of images that I'd stamped and coloured weeks ago, and I decided to make some embellishments for them.

The image is a stamp I won some months ago. It's a Little Darlings stamp from Love to Stamp. It's such a pretty image. I did stamp it ages ago, and I even coloured it about three months ago, but it's lain there, waiting for me to do something with it. Unusually, I coloured it with my Derwent Coloursoft pencils as I thought they'd give the soft effect I was looking for. The paper is one I designed for a different card ages ago, and the flowers were triple embossed with Cosmic Shimmer ultra-thick powder, and then stamped with a celtic knotwork stamp which was amongst the first stamps I ever bought.

This one uses some Clarity stamps - the Versatile Vase, a flower one and a swirl one whose names I can't currently remember! I had to do some masking, but was quite pleased with the result. I used Memento ink for the main image and Distress Ink for the swirls, and I coloured with Promarkers. I've added some more Distress Ink around the image, and a paper from the Papermania Capsule collection.

In this instance, I used two different embossing powders. First, I used a Cosmic Shimmer powder (not ultra-thick). I thought it was a bit dark, so I pulled out some pale lilac that I bought some years ago but haven't used often. On the lilac layer, I stamped as I did on the last card, and I hated the result! You couldn't see any of the shimmery colours, only the matte, basic lilac. So, I added another layer of the Cosmic Shimmer, and heated until the embossing melted to flat, which gave me a rather nice marbled effect. And I finished with some Spellbinders die cuts.

Wednesday, 1 August 2012

Despite being on holiday for a week and a half, I've done remarkably little in the cardmaking department. The first week, the weather was awful - so hot and sticky - and I just didn't have the energy to do anything. (Seriously, I know other folks don't approve, but give me cool and grey any day - at least you can do things!) And this week, we've been in a major turmoil. Our younger son is heading off tomorrow to start a year abroad for his degree. Because he's doing both French and German, that means he spend one semester at university in each country, and because he didn't do any German before university, he's got an extra summer course in Germany this month. So far, so good. He'd been warned not to expect a quick response to his application for accommodation at his French university, so when he hadn't heard anything, wasn't too worried. Then, he found a Facebook for Brits going to that university and found that others had heard. So, panic set in. It looks as though his application has fallen through the cracks, and we've been trawling the internet to find him something for 1st September. No luck so far, although we're waiting to hear from a couple of places which might have something for the first couple of months, although he'd have to look elsewhere after that. So, not conducive to cardmaking. But, I have done a few bits, and here they are!

This is the second of the pair I've made for my husband's twin brothers. I did the first one ages ago, designing the background in Photoshop Elements and adding some embellishments I've had for ages. This second one took only a few minutes since the background was all ready to print again, so I don't know why it took me so long!

This is the first of two cards I've made with some Whimsy Stamp images I was lucky enough to win last year. Although I chose the images, I got them a little late in my Christmas Card making cycle to use them much last year, but I've got several of both printed and ready to go for this year. In these two cards, I printed onto watercolour paper and pulled out my Aquamarkers. I'm not nearly as comfortable with watercolour as a technique as I am Promarkers, but I was fairly pleased with the result. I've added some sparkle to the angel's wings with Twinkling H2O in Heavenly white. I cut the image using a Spellbinders die, then decided it would look good with some gilding. So, I got out my ink duster brushes, and some Versamark. Then, I brushed on some Perfect Pearl in gold, and that's what I got! I suspect it's something I'll do again. The background paper is from the Papermania Capsule Collection, and I've added some stamped, embossed snowflakes in blue. The sentiment is hand-written on a Spellbinders label die cut and I've matted with blue mirror board.

Again, the image is watercoloured with Aquamarkers and the wings with Twinkling H2O. this time, I cut round the image, and mounted it on some die cut paper from Kars. I added some red mat, and some backing paper from the same Kars pad and finished with a couple of pieces of ribbon.

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About this Blog

I'm a cardmaker who's been into crafty things most of my adult life. It used to be knitting and stitching of various varieties (tapestry, cross stitch, hardanger and blackwork) but these days it's pretty much paper-based. I'm enjoying being part of the craft community here on Blogger, and have already learned a lot from everyone. Here you'll see the results of my efforts. Comments are welcome and appreciated.